Comments on: Google Analytics Anomaly: More Visits than Page Views? http://balancedbraces.com/2009/06/04/google-analytics-anomaly-more-visits-than-page-views/ practical PHP and more Sun, 04 Jul 2010 12:53:26 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Spikey http://balancedbraces.com/2009/06/04/google-analytics-anomaly-more-visits-than-page-views/#comment-103 Spikey Thu, 08 Oct 2009 08:31:15 +0000 http://balancedbraces.com/?p=45#comment-103 Hostname was my initial intuition as well, but never was able to block the ghost visits with it, probably because it adds only transaction data + a visit for each transaction, but no other data like pageviews and hostname, and hence, you're bound to be unable to use regular filters to block them out. Hostname was my initial intuition as well, but never was able to block the ghost visits with it, probably because it adds only transaction data + a visit for each transaction, but no other data like pageviews and hostname, and hence, you’re bound to be unable to use regular filters to block them out.

]]> By: Nathan Ziarek http://balancedbraces.com/2009/06/04/google-analytics-anomaly-more-visits-than-page-views/#comment-102 Nathan Ziarek Thu, 08 Oct 2009 01:27:35 +0000 http://balancedbraces.com/?p=45#comment-102 @Spikey -- Thought about that and had experimented with it pretty thoroughly. It blocked out maybe 90% of the visits, but some still got through. To experiment, I first blocked all hostnames with .*, then worked through each of the ecommerce metrics to combine and see which would block out all of the incoming ghost visits. I never found that did. It is tough to tell if you solution is working or not, but my initial assessment is that it is much better than anything I'd come up with. It's great having more pageviews than visitors! :) @Spikey — Thought about that and had experimented with it pretty thoroughly. It blocked out maybe 90% of the visits, but some still got through. To experiment, I first blocked all hostnames with .*, then worked through each of the ecommerce metrics to combine and see which would block out all of the incoming ghost visits. I never found that did. It is tough to tell if you solution is working or not, but my initial assessment is that it is much better than anything I’d come up with. It’s great having more pageviews than visitors! :)

]]> By: Spikey http://balancedbraces.com/2009/06/04/google-analytics-anomaly-more-visits-than-page-views/#comment-101 Spikey Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:08:09 +0000 http://balancedbraces.com/?p=45#comment-101 Dear Nathan, You can actually exclude ghost visits in subprofiles resulting from ecommerce tracking in irrelevant OTHER subprofiles by using the filter 'exclude Ecommerce ID' or something in that fashion for those profiles, and then entering .* as a regular expression to exclude ALL Ecommerce IDs. This should stop including the ecommerce transaction data from entering a subprofile. Regards, Spikey Dear Nathan,

You can actually exclude ghost visits in subprofiles resulting from ecommerce tracking in irrelevant OTHER subprofiles by using the filter ‘exclude Ecommerce ID’ or something in that fashion for those profiles, and then entering .* as a regular expression to exclude ALL Ecommerce IDs. This should stop including the ecommerce transaction data from entering a subprofile.

Regards,
Spikey

]]> By: Nathan Ziarek http://balancedbraces.com/2009/06/04/google-analytics-anomaly-more-visits-than-page-views/#comment-100 Nathan Ziarek Fri, 02 Oct 2009 15:54:00 +0000 http://balancedbraces.com/?p=45#comment-100 I have a script that automatically tags all <A> with onclick functions to check and see if they need a manual "trackPageview" / "trackEvent" call. Right after I installed this, my sub profiles started getting ridiculous data -- 1,200 visits with 2 pageviews. I stripped everything from the code, leaving it just as Google recommends. Still saw these hugely inflated numbers. At the same time as I was working on that, we were also working on adding transaction (ecommerce) data to Google Analytics. I never even considered it, since those were pretty much just normal pageviews and the directory filter should have extracted them. But ... after our ecommerce testing was done, I turned on ecommerce in a "good data" profile and it instantly had all the test data we'd run through. Since GA doesn't go back and re-process old data, this clued me in to the fact that Spikey might be right. And if each transaction + each product call results in a new "visit" to the subprofile, that'd explain how these numbers shoot up so fast. Experimenting now...will let you know how it goes. Thanks Spikey! I have a script that automatically tags all with onclick functions to check and see if they need a manual “trackPageview” / “trackEvent” call. Right after I installed this, my sub profiles started getting ridiculous data — 1,200 visits with 2 pageviews. I stripped everything from the code, leaving it just as Google recommends. Still saw these hugely inflated numbers.

At the same time as I was working on that, we were also working on adding transaction (ecommerce) data to Google Analytics. I never even considered it, since those were pretty much just normal pageviews and the directory filter should have extracted them.

But … after our ecommerce testing was done, I turned on ecommerce in a “good data” profile and it instantly had all the test data we’d run through. Since GA doesn’t go back and re-process old data, this clued me in to the fact that Spikey might be right. And if each transaction + each product call results in a new “visit” to the subprofile, that’d explain how these numbers shoot up so fast.

Experimenting now…will let you know how it goes.

Thanks Spikey!

]]> By: Spikey http://balancedbraces.com/2009/06/04/google-analytics-anomaly-more-visits-than-page-views/#comment-95 Spikey Fri, 31 Jul 2009 08:50:28 +0000 http://balancedbraces.com/?p=45#comment-95 For ecommerce ghost visits to not enter subprofiles, you need to filter your profiles differently; remove your regular subprofile filter and replace them with these two: For a non-ecommerce subprofile www.yoursite.com/whatever Filter 1: Filtername: Whatever Filtertype: Custom filter select 'Advanced' Field A --> Extract A: -Request URL- ^/whatever Field B -> Extract B: -- (leave empty) Output to -> Constructor: -Custom Field 1- whatever Field A required: Y Field B required: N Override Output Field: Y Case Sensitive: N Filter 2: Filtername: Whatever (extract) Filtertype: Custom filters select 'Include' Filter Field -Custom Field 1- Filter Pattern: whatever Case Sensitive: N This may also filter subprofile ghostvisits for events, but I can't check for certain since I don't use them. For ecommerce ghost visits to not enter subprofiles, you need to filter your profiles differently; remove your regular subprofile filter and replace them with these two:

For a non-ecommerce subprofile http://www.yoursite.com/whatever

Filter 1:

Filtername: Whatever
Filtertype: Custom filter
select ‘Advanced’
Field A –> Extract A: -Request URL- ^/whatever
Field B -> Extract B: — (leave empty)
Output to -> Constructor: -Custom Field 1- whatever
Field A required: Y
Field B required: N
Override Output Field: Y
Case Sensitive: N

Filter 2:

Filtername: Whatever (extract)
Filtertype: Custom filters
select ‘Include’
Filter Field -Custom Field 1-
Filter Pattern: whatever
Case Sensitive: N

This may also filter subprofile ghostvisits for events, but I can’t check for certain since I don’t use them.

]]> By: Spikey http://balancedbraces.com/2009/06/04/google-analytics-anomaly-more-visits-than-page-views/#comment-94 Spikey Thu, 30 Jul 2009 17:50:18 +0000 http://balancedbraces.com/?p=45#comment-94 This sounds like the exact same problem I'm having. I have about 50 subprofiles on my main profile, and one of the subprofiles has the ecommerce script. Since the launch of the ecommerce script, I noticed zero page visits dripping in on every subprofile, except for the ecommerce profile. All these ghost visits seemed to have an ecommerce success of 100%. That means every ghost visit saw the page with the ecommerce script, which can't be a coincidence. It probably has to do with the transaction variable, which is related to visits instead of clickstream data; transactions are added to every subprofile (even if ecommerce is switched off on those subprofiles), along with the visits that, impossible to filter in any way but with afterwards with advanced segments (with the known tricks of 'more than zero pageviews', 'hostname contains www.yoursite.com' etc). The main profile and the ecommerce subprofile seem to remain unaffected, because those visits are already counted there anyway. Curiously, two of my profiles with certain advanced filters don't have the ghost visits. This is hopeful, I'll look into that as soon as I can. This sounds like the exact same problem I’m having. I have about 50 subprofiles on my main profile, and one of the subprofiles has the ecommerce script. Since the launch of the ecommerce script, I noticed zero page visits dripping in on every subprofile, except for the ecommerce profile. All these ghost visits seemed to have an ecommerce success of 100%. That means every ghost visit saw the page with the ecommerce script, which can’t be a coincidence.

It probably has to do with the transaction variable, which is related to visits instead of clickstream data; transactions are added to every subprofile (even if ecommerce is switched off on those subprofiles), along with the visits that, impossible to filter in any way but with afterwards with advanced segments (with the known tricks of ‘more than zero pageviews’, ‘hostname contains http://www.yoursite.com‘ etc). The main profile and the ecommerce subprofile seem to remain unaffected, because those visits are already counted there anyway.

Curiously, two of my profiles with certain advanced filters don’t have the ghost visits. This is hopeful, I’ll look into that as soon as I can.

]]> By: Dieter http://balancedbraces.com/2009/06/04/google-analytics-anomaly-more-visits-than-page-views/#comment-93 Dieter Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:08:16 +0000 http://balancedbraces.com/?p=45#comment-93 no news regarding this ? no news regarding this ?

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